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8:45

Yaya got back home at 8:45 pm last night. Before she left for school in the morning, she informed me “mom, few of my classmates and I are going for a Latin Dance lesson near city after school and I will be late”

As you can see, she didn’t ask me for my permission to go for the dance lesson. I thought about it as this whole independence thing is an unchartered territory for me. I figured If at 16, the govt allows her to apply for drivers license without parental consent, then perhaps I have to accept that she can make her own decisions. But I was still a bit annoyed, even though there was no reason for me to be annoyed other than the fact that I am fast becoming a Queen without a crown and sceptre.

A part of me knows that Latin dance is so much fun and if you know how to dance, then you will have a great time when you go clubbing. ( You don’t have to sit like a wet blanket when everyone else is dancing) Yaya is at an age where she should learn to dance and I think she is doing the right thing. But she is also my little baby. ( I know she is 16, but still) I know I can’t stop her from going out and I know I really shouldn’t stop her from living her life..But I am so scared of the unknown.

At about 7:30 pm, she called me to say that she is at the bus station and will catch the next bus and is expected home in about an hour. Until now, she never took public transport after 5 pm, because she felt the passengers who take the bus after work are creepy.

At 8;35, I heard my son’s phone ringing and he came and told me ” Mom, I am going to the bus stop to wait for Yaya” He took the torch and went to get his sister.

I guess in another few years, my son will also be coming home late and then it will be baby’s turn..and then they all leave home..

10 thoughts on “8:45”

I’m sorry for ever doubting you. I’m going through a tough time right now and your posts about overcoming adversity were so inspirational and almost unreal that i started questioning the authencity of it. I find solace in the fact that despite so much people against you, youre now at a point in life that most people wont ever achieve in their lifetimes. Your story gave me a shit ton of hope but I later on started questioning whether it was real as it sounded too good to be true. Thanks for the inspiration and i hope against hope that i trust in a good person.

I find your life story so inspiring that my mood board has quotes from your story stuck all over it (this sounds as if I’m trying to butter you up but I’m not, I promise – just trying to be honest). Like I said, your life is like a promise to me that if I work hard, the life that I ridiculously daydream about is right at the tip of my fingers.

To answer your question, I think a good person is merely someone who has good, honest intentions at heart MOST of the time in whatever they do (because let’s face it – none of us are saints to be filled with positive thoughts 24/7). However, what is categorized as ‘good, honest intentions’ is different for different people so that’s when things gets a little bit blurry but I can say that from what I’ve seen, you do fit my version of someone who has ‘good, honest intentions’ thus you’re a good person in my eyes.

We got off on a bad start but I had to question whether you are the person who you’ve said you are before I really could bring my hopes up about hailing you as an inspiration to motivate me to get myself out of the horrible place that I am currently in. I hope you can understand.

Also, I have a question – do you think it is okay that parents encourage children to compete with their peers? From my own experience, I feel that the way Malayalee parents do it, it brings out feelings of insecurity, jealousy and just not wanting others to do well in their lives. What do you feel about this?

Thank you for reading this incredibly long-winded message! I really do appreciate you spending your time reading this :).

Acacia: I started the blog to write about what I have gone through, mostly because I could never tell anyone my story. People have this notion that mothers are angels on earth and if I said I had a lousy mother, then I was committing the biggest sin against humanity, because everyone had good mothers, therefore I couldn’t have a bad mother.
I asked you define what is good because I don’t fall in to the category of a good Malayalee. I drink like a fish, I am very open about my sexuality and do what I want to do, irrespective of anyone’s opinions. I live my life according to my terms and for most those terms aren’t classified as good. Often I get hurt, but I also know to get up, pick up the pieces and start again, for I am still the master of my own destiny. In the end I believe in what Maya Angelou said once “Your destiny is to find the courage to flesh out the great dreams, To dare to love, to dare to care, to dare to be significant and to admit it. Not by the things you own, or the positions you hold, but by the life you live.”
As for Indian way of raising children by making them compete with their peers..there are 1.2 billion people in India and assume 1 % of those in the 1.2 billion are brilliant and then it is only natural that at least 1 % of those 1% brilliant students should receive a nobel prize or the fields medal ( Ramanujan was Indian and no Indian have reached his level since then). Indians will never get to win those medals/accolades because we are much focussed on what the neighbour’s child is getting, rather than encourage the creativity in our own children.

If my mother did everything your mother has done to you, I would feel the exact same way as you.

I really don’t think that drinking, experimenting with drugs (not saying that you do), having (romantic) relationships in your life etc really does determine whether a person is good or bad… so yeah, you still haven’t debunked my thought on you being a good person. I have lived outside of Kerala all my life (well except two years of my life where I wanted to experiment a little but that’s irrelevant) so I’d like to think that I am not AS narrow-minded as a typical Malayalee.

Well if you live by that Maya Angelou quote then I hardly think that the standards that you have enforced in your life are bad!

I like that reasoning a lot. Thank you very much :)! Makes me feel a whole lot better and kind of adds to my theory about this little matter. Do you ever feel a little miserable about the fact that if you had a different upbringing you would’ve been living a vastly different life with even more achievements/experiences (not saying that you haven’t achieved enough in life but just the fact that with the abilities that you seem to have, I think you could’ve been in an even higher position just generally in life)?

Acacia: the flip side would have been me married to some Achayan with a basic BA/BSc education, but with family money and few acres of rubber ( the only choice available to most of my female relatives at that time) and living in some onam kera moola in Kerala and burning out. So, I don’t think ‘would have, could have” makes any sense. I am where I am because I refuse to give up and I don’t feel miserable because I wasn’t given a head start. I am proud of the fact despite all the bad things, I achieved a lot more than a lot of people who had better chances. I am living my dream.

Ok! Yaya came home late one night.. why are you fast forwarding time and thinking of a time when they would have all left home?! There is lot of time for that and it is the right course of life anyway.

MS: When I wrote the last sentence, the nursery rhyme , ring around rosie… we all fall down was in my head..If the past 16 years went just like that, I have no hope that the next 4 years , till my youngest leaves home will be any slower. I don’t know how I will cope. Yes I have places to go and books to read..but the loneliness will kill me.

Can one be true to self (without causing too much distress to nearest loved ones)
We sometimes sacrifice personal wants, this is ok as long as this doesnt burden recipient with guilt and the your choices are for love, and not out of obligation.

Every one is who they are today, because of the journey they took. Past choices probably shaped the current self if they took the choice to learn from past. I try not to judge, because I dont know what the other persons journey way. A smiling face or nice clothes etc dont mean anything, but eyes seem to tell untold stories sometimes.